Cecile Butts Truitt

Cecile Butts Truitt, former Baylor professor, died Aug. 1, 2023, in Tucson, Arizona. She had only recently moved to Tucson from Waco five months earlier to be near her daughter Catherine.

Truitt grew up in Galveston and moved to Alta Loma (now Santa Fe), Texas, when she was 9 years old. She went to Lamar University, where she majored in math with a minor in English and played clarinet in the band.

Truitt received a teaching assistantship at Purdue University in Indiana, where she received her master’s degree in math and met her husband Jim, who was working on his master’s in economics. Jim and Cecile married Aug. 25, 1962, before moving to Champaign, Illinois, to pursue doctorate degrees at the University of Illinois in their respective disciplines. In 1965, Jim took a job at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and Cecile taught there part-time. Their daughter Susan was born during their time there.

They moved to Waco in 1968, where Jim had taken a job teaching in the Department of Economics and Finance at Baylor. Cecile started teaching mathematics part-time at Baylor in the fall of 1969. They joined First Methodist Church, and their daughter Catherine was born in Waco.

Truitt loved singing in the church choir and playing in the handbell choir. After Cecile and Jim had retired from teaching at Baylor, they enjoyed traveling throughout the year as empty nesters.